Home is where the handknits are…

The Saga Ends!

I had another appointment with the Public Health nurses yesterday, and I am SO glad I got the nurse that I did. She’s a former LLL leader and was also an IBCLC before she became a public health nurse. Anyway, we weighed her at the beginning of the appointment, and as soon as she put Anastasia on the scale, Anastasia peed and pooped EVERYWHERE. So, took her off, got her cleaned, onto the scale again. And again she peed everywhere! She even got the nurse that time! But when her weight came back, it was below the weight we got a couple days before. We weighed her again, just to be sure, and the scale still showed that she’d lost, though 30g less than the first weight. We went to the other scale we’d used a couple days before and tried that. Now there was a 50g difference between the first weight and that one, but it STILL showed a loss. I was stunned, and close to tears. But the nurse was like, “if she’s been peeing and pooping that much in the last few days I just can’t see how that could be possible. If I didn’t have a scale there would be NO reason to believe there was anything wrong with this baby.” (Anastasia was alert and looking around and trying to throw herself off my shoulder in all sorts of directions :snicker )

Anyway, the nurse ignored everything written from all the other appointments and just calculated Anastasia’s gain from her lowest weight to yesterday’s weights…those calculations showed above average gains per day, even using the lowest weight we received. SOMETHING was just not right, but I was still freaked. The nurse reassured me, though, saying that it had to be some sort of problem with the scales (I mean, look at the difference we saw between weights during a single appointment!) And she said, “of course I’m going to have to deny telling you this, but I want you to just go home, ignore the clock, nurse as often as you and Anna want, and stay as far away from us Public Health nurses as you can. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your baby, but I think there is everything wrong with the fact that they’ve scheduled you for appointment after appointment just to have added stress caused by unreliable scales.” *grin*

Later that day, the nurse called me at home with some news. Apparently she was talking to one of the other nurses I’d seen and comparing notes, when they noticed that this other nurse had two different weights written down between her notes and Anna’s chart: the chart said 3806 where the notes said 3608. That accounted for the supposed loss! So, nothing to worry about after all.

So anyway, since then things have been going wonderfully. She’s suddenly nursing beautifully, has big poops after every feed, is getting more and more alert every day, and looks healthy. I’m actually looking forward to our appointment with her pediatrician on Tuesday, which is a nice change considering I was dreading hearing nothing but bad news until the end of yesterday’s appointment.